beulahbondo's Diaryland Diary
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"This is a show tune, but the show ain't been written yet."
Peth has already written the heartfelt death notice, and you can read it here.
I can never quite identify my feelings when a famous person dies. There's a lot of "no more" - no more music from that person, no more will their friends see them, etc. Today I am reduced to solipsistic admiration of coincidence: When I opened the CD case of "Please don't let me be misunderstood," by Ms. Nina Simone, it was empty. Now how do you find the wrong CD case that you tucked the CD into? I remembered that I played the CD a lot for this class I was teaching, along with Thelonious Monk. And voila, Nina was tucked in with Thelonious.
So I'm listening to the lustrous voice and the firm piano of Ms. Simone and urge you all to do the same today.
The high priestess of I'm-not-sure-what, Kitty B, is in town and we'll get together soon, her and her Marathon mate Garloo. I feel like a schmo saying I'm tired today, that the right is all theirs. But I am!
Last night I went to a demonstration/talk on Gregorian and other chants. I might as well have been at a chemistry lecture for all I couid follow; nonetheless, I enjoyed it, especially the chants themselves, and the observation of that peculiar kind of scholarship, musicology. One great analogy: Imagine that you had only one surviving student, and that was your worst student. And that student became well-known for teaching what you taught, and became synonymous with you, but they did it all wrong. That's what happened to chants in the ninth century. And that's how I'm gonna think of all my students from now on. One of them might be the one to corrupt the Beulahgian chant.
10:37 a.m. - 2003-04-22
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